Private employers make significant investments to be employers of choice. Their accomplishments are featured in a variety of business and trade publications on various “best” lists.
If you’d like to find out how the federal government fares as an employer of choice, then you might be interested in the recent 2007 Best Places to Work rankings of employee engagement across 282 federal agencies and subcomponents. The rankings are considered the most comprehensive and authoritative rating and analysis of employee engagement in the federal government. The 2007 rankings are the third edition of an ongoing series, following the 2003 and 2005 versions.
The rankings were developed by the Partnership for Public Service and American University’s Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation. They used data from the Office of Personnel Management’s Federal Human Capital Survey to rank agencies and subcomponents on a Best Places to Work index score, which measures overall employee engagement. The score is calculated both for the organization as a whole and also for specific demographic groups.
In addition to this employee engagement rating, agencies and subcomponents are also scored in 10 workplace environment (“best in class”) categories such as work/life balance, support for diversity, family friendly culture and benefits, and pay and benefits.
Federal agencies are also ranked by various demographic groups including: female/male, 40 and over/under 40, American Indian, Asian, Black or African-American, Hispanic or Latino, Multi-racial, and white.
A “Best Place To Work” brochure summarizing the ratings is available here.
By Patricia A. Schaeffer, Vice President-Regulatory Affairs